The Takeaway: Decision time for Felix Doubront

OAKLAND — As always, the questions are easier to ask than they are to answer. What to do with Felix Doubront?

By Tim Britton

OAKLAND — As always, the questions are easier to ask than they are to answer. What to do with Felix Doubront?

Making a firm final decision on Doubront based on Friday would be unwise. But the left-hander’s outing in a 4-3 loss to the Athletics probably prodded you in whichever direction you felt entering the evening, its malleable mediocrity perfect for confirmation bias.

If you came into Friday thinking a demotion from the rotation is overdue for Doubront, well, you’ve got some evidence. His fastball velocity wavered, his command was inconsistent and his pitch count was consequently elevated. As has been the case for much of 2014, even Doubront’s good innings rarely feel comfortable.

For the fourth time in his 10 major-league starts this season, he didn’t finish five innings. He walked as many guys as he struck out (four apiece), and he allowed harder contact than the two hits he yielded suggests. His ground-ball rate has decreased all season, and on Friday it bottomed out as he generated a single out on the ground.

The velocity is an issue, of course. Doubront pitched at 93-94 with his fastball in 2012. It dropped to 91-92 last season. It’s been 90-91 for the past six weeks, and the gradual decline is disconcerting. A pitcher who struck out more than a batter per inning in 2012 has seen that total drop to two-thirds that level.

“We haven’t seen that velocity come back,” pitching coach Juan Nieves said. “The more velocity, the more movement you create, the more action you create downward.”

At the same time, if your thought process entering Friday was that Doubront can still be a valuable member of the rotation, that he rebounded from a start eerily similar to this one last season to become one of Boston’s best pitchers over the summer, there were positives emerging from those 4 2/3 innings.

Sure, he made one large mistake to Josh Donaldson for a three-run first-inning homer — “middle up,” he said — but otherwise kept the American League’s best offense off the board. He compensated for his subpar fastball with one of the best curveballs he’s showcased all season and his ever-dangerous changeup. Tighten up the command issues, and you’ve got a 26-year-old with serious potential.

“Very encouraging,” Nieves classified the outing. “The delivery, he’s right on track. We saw some really great-angled balls down today. And the mix is always great. Any lefty that can spin the breaking ball like he can, changeups and cutters — we want those guys.”

The question is how much. What is Doubront’s value to the Red Sox right now? He’s in his third year in Boston’s rotation, and the gradual steps of improvement — made in spite of the drop in velocity — have halted this season. Is he what he is, or is there still something more there, and can it be untapped this season?

Time is the ultimate arbiter, but the Red Sox don’t have that luxury right now. They have to figure out how exactly they feel about Doubront, and that — probably more than how they feel about Brandon Workman — will determine what this rotation looks like next week in Seattle and New York.

You can make a matrix of Boston’s possible decisions regarding the rotation, with the short-term and long-term pros and cons, and no single choice is perfect. Optioning Workman and Rubby De La Rosa gives you more data points on Doubront and Clay Buchholz, but it sends a tough message to the pitchers who have outperformed the men they replaced — “He who pitches the best stays,” Nieves said Friday. Moving Workman to the bullpen stunts his development as a starter and prevents him from serving as valuable rotation depth at a relatively early juncture in the season. Moving Doubront there saps him of trade value and suggests long-term doubts about his viability as a starter.

Boston’s offense is its biggest problem, and three runs of support will continue to be too few no matter what the Sox decide about their rotation. But where the Red Sox fall on Doubront and Workman will reveal how they feel about both, and perhaps how they feel about 2014 overall.